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Sookoo: We did not deal with change management properly

Dressed in his starched white shirt and conservative banker’s tie, Suresh Sookoo, the CEO of RBC Caribbean, seems comfortable and relaxed in his corner office, with its picturesque ceiling to floor view of Queen’s Royal College and the hills of St Ann’s.

But even the calm, seemingly mild-mannered banking executive, must have got perturbed by the thumbs-down reviews by some Trinbagonians of RBC service changes as well as the negative interpretation of the sale in January of RBC Jamaica to Sagicor for US$84 million.

The sale of the RBC franchise in Jamaica, the English-speaking Caribbean’s largest market, even led to speculation that a global bank based in London was planning to buy RBC Caribbean.

On that issue, Sookoo is unequivocal: “We are not in discussion with any other bank in the Caribbean about selling anything.”

But he admits that the bank is seeing tough times in Eastern Caribbean countries, which are taking a long time to turnaround, and have very little limited fiscal flexibility.

The bank is planning some restructuring up the islands, but part of that is due to the fact that the rebranding after the acquisition was never done in some islands.